Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 257
“The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man, no human voce can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form a living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophets’ words…” (Thunder in the Soul pg.49)
To paraphrase Pete Seeger; where have all the prophets gone? Where has the study and living into the words and actions of prophets gone? How has our hearing gone so deaf that we do not hear their words screaming at us through the Bible, that we do not hear “God is raging” daily in his words from Mount Sinai, that we do not hear the agony in our own souls at what we are doing and what is happening in the world?
As I have said many times, We the People are descendants of the Prophets, we have within us the prophetic spirit, the prophetic ear, the ability to bear the “burden upon” our soul that God has “thrust upon” us. Many of We the People are “bowed and stunned” at this moment in history, in our lives which are being terrorized by the ‘love of Hitler’ by the Young Republicans, by the hatred of anyone who is not a ‘white christian nationalist’, by the “fierce greed” of the billionaires, of Trump, his family, the ‘good jewish boy’ Jared Kushner, Lutnick, Bessent, Bondi, et al! As we learn in typing class: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”! Have We the People become so “bowed and stunned” that we are paralyzed to take the next right action? Have We the People become so overcome with the “agony” of this moment that we have forgotten the words and deeds of the prophets, of our ancestors’ teachings and the ethical wills they have given us?
The word “agony” comes from the Greek meaning “contest”, which I am hearing this morning as meaning when “agony” strikes us, we need to “contest” with the source of it, not run away from it; when we witness the “agony” of another human being, we have to “contest” with the source of their agony as well. Many times the “agony” we suffer from is rooted in our spirit, be it the crushing of our spirit by the “fierce greed” of another, especially autocratic, fascist leaders, or the crushing of our spirit by our own “fierce greed”. It is incumbent upon We the People to hear the “full terror” that the prophets describe, that God is trying to convey to us. Yet, We the People so often ignore the call, promote the terror, and dismiss the “agony” of another and even ourselves at times saying ‘grow up’, ‘this is the way of the world’, etc. IT IS NOT THE WAY OF THE WORLD! At least not the world envisioned by the Bible in Genesis’ first two chapters, not the way of the world envisioned by the prophets, not the way of the world that the Bible teaches us. It is the way of the world that greed dictates, that anger employs, that fascism, autocracy demands.
We the People are being given a choice, again and always: which path are we going to follow-holy and hard, unholy and easy. While I don’t like to either/or too many things, I see the choice this clearly today. We the People can and, I think must, understand the call of the prophets, is the call of Sinai, the call of the 10 Sayings, the call to “love the stranger”, to help one’s enemy’s ass, to love your neighbor, to rebuke people because we are all capable of change, to not mixup what is life giving and life taking, to take care of the blind and the deaf, the poor and the needy, the voiceless and the powerless. These are our inheritances, these ways of BEING HUMAN, especially in times like these where being human is laughed at, ridiculed, demeaned by the people in power, by the Stephen Millers, Kristi Noem’s, Kash Patel’s, Mike Johnson’s of our country and world. BEING HUMAN has lost its value to Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben G’Vir, et al as well. ERGO: it is imperative for We the People to practice being human even to those who are not willing to be human towards us, it is imperative for We the People to use any and every means possible to help those who believe that inhumane treatment is humane, that evil is good, etc to “hit a bottom”, We the People need to do an intervention upon them and send them to a spiritual rehabilitation facility so they can relearn what Christ really taught, what the Bible stresses more than xenophobia: All people have infinitely equal and unique dignity and that everyone matters!
As I write this, I am overwhelmed with the “terror” that prophets witnessed and felt in their souls. I am so proud of the millions of people who went to the No Kings Day protests on Oct. 18, 2025. I am so grateful to have been at one here in the Desert and witness not only the 2 City blocks of fellow protestors, to witness how many people had signs in their cars, how many cars honked and how many people were grateful we were there when they could not be.
The “fierce greed” is, of course, not only for money, it is for control and power as well. I know this “fierce greed” because as one who felt powerless and voiceless, I did everything I could to ‘be on top’, to ‘have a seat at the table’ and I failed miserably because I was not doing anything for the sake of anyone but me and I wasn’t that good at selfishness as I kept getting caught! In recovery, however, my mission was to help those who had nothing, to never make money the deciding factor as to helping someone or not, both at Beit T’Shuvah and in my personal counseling. Pay what you can has always kept my “fierce greed” in check and living into the words and deeds of the prophets is/has always been my goal and pathway in my recovery. It is hard, I screw up at times, and it is rewarding, it is invigorating and it is spiritually healing and maturing. It is the better way to be! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark